Test scheduled on Monday, and I've managed to freak myself out

treehouse

I've been studying the test since mid-June using Darril Gibson's book. I picked his over my usual go-to (Mike Myers) because of the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Amazon. Up until this evening I have felt right around 90% sure I am going to pass the test. I have a thorough understanding of all the concepts and most of the minutiae in the Gibson book. I saved the assessment test until after my first read through and got an 88% on it - used that to triangulate my weaknesses, restudied and got a 94% on the final test (I've only taken each once; study in other certs has burned me on reusing a practice test). I was planning to spend the weekend hammering away on the only chapter I missed more than one question on (crypto).

Then I borrowed a coworker's Glen Clarke book. He recently passed with an obscene score. He's our company's actual security administrator and has an IA degree along with other credentials/experience. I don't think he actually used the Clarke book all that much because the CD was still sealed and the book pages are fairly crisp. That's an aside. I mainly borrowed the book to get some extra practice testing in and boost my confidence level. The opposite of that happened. I didn't even finish the first practice test because I was running into so many terms and concepts that were completely unfamiliar (example: Gibson covers bluesnarfing and bluejacking, but suddenly I'm hearing about bluebugging from Clarke). I spent most of this evening speed-reading Clarke's behemoth. I'm 8 chapters in and I suddenly feel like I need another two weeks of prep.

Has this happened to anyone else? Should I just pretend I never picked up the Clarke book and proceed with my original plan? It's too late to reschedule the test. Any advice is appreciated.

NotHackingYou

Gibson's book did it for me. Check out the practice questions on CompTIA's web site.

juvenileslilbrotha

Tree, I also used the Glen Clarke book so I am going to try to help you out with your dilemna. In my opinion the Clarke book focuses on more real life issues you would encounter at your job. It focuses on actual hacker tools and is full of screen shots from Windows 2003 Server showing you how to setup a PKI or how to actually use bitlocker to encrypt your hard drive. Guess what... none of those screen shots and none of that is on the Sec+ exam. Half of the material in the Clarke book does not even appear on the exam. There were no questions about bluebugging or the Nessus tool or many other things in the Clarke book on the actual exam. You have committed to the Gibson book and that is enough and it is too late now to revert to another training guide. You need to put the Clarke Book down, you are only going to confuse yourself. Everything you need is in the Gibson book. Godd Luck.
Remember, you are also going to feel like you are failing the test about half way through, ignore this feeling and press on, everyone who takes this test has that feeling.

treehouse

Thank you for the responses - I took the official practice test on CompTIA's website and got a (barely) passing score. From what I understand their questions are formatted similarly to the actual test, and are perhaps more difficult. I put down the Clarke book and am continuing my reread of Gibson's crypto chapter and a few other key sections based on the results of the official practice test. I'm also reviewing this - MC MCSE: Security+ Study Guide

Test is tomorrow morning. I'll update with how it went.

treehouse

I passed this morning with an 848 Thanks to both of you for the advice. I dropped the Clarke book like a hot potato and went back to reviewing things I wasn't as strong on in Gibson's. I also took the CompTIA practice test and barely passed. It confirmed that my weakness was crypto, so I didn't spend much time on anything else in my final prep session. That paid dividends on the actual test because I'm pretty sure more than 11% of the questions touched on crypto.

I'll reiterate so this thread is useful to others approaching the test - take your crypto very seriously, and memorize common ports. (Almost) everything else on the test was intuitive/common sense after a single read-through of the Gibson book. A few of the questions were ambiguous but I would say over 80% of them were straightforward questions or scenarios without a 'trick'.

I posted another reply to this thread last night but it was flagged as spam and sent to moderator review. Not sure why.

treehouse

Oh, and if you're reading this Mr. Gibson (from what I see you check the forums occasionally), thank you for writing your book. That was by far the most cost-effective and painless certification prep I've ever done. If you had a CCNA book out (my next target cert) I'd buy it. Just sayin'

juvenileslilbrotha

Good job Tree, the CCNA will be a completely different challenge, trust me!